Escape Reality
by pillowhisper
Summary: The hottest virtual reality game just launched and Hinata decides to give it a go! Who will she meet along the way? Rated T for language. One-shot!


Might still be some minor mistakes. Will make some tweaks. Just really wanted to get this up. Reviews give me some form of motivation to write more. Thanks for reading! (,:

Escape Reality

Hinata stared at the digital landscape in front of her. This world seemed to mimic present day Tokyo, with its neon signs and peculiar building placements. If it weren't for the occasional NPC or the lack of certain sensory information, she might have mistaken it for the real thing. It seemed like this virtual reality was mimicked after Shibuya. Confirming her suspicions, she noticed a neon sign saying "Neo-Shibuya" floating atop the spawn spot. Tall department stores littered every block and Hinata made a mental note to go shopping with Tenten later this week. Speaking of Tenten, where was she? She could see some other players standing idly near the spawn spot—the place they had decided to meet. The newly released patch included a two-person mission which was rumored to unlock a special weapon should you succeed. She and Tenten had agreed to play a round and see what the fuss was all about. Hinata leaned back and while she saw the virtual clouds above, she felt the plush softness of her pillows. She hummed to the tune of the upbeat background music.

Flicking her handheld controller, Hinata shifted through the user display to look at her equipment. Her avatar came into view along with a panel that displayed her items. Unlike her physical self, which was sitting on her bed in her pajamas, her avatar—like every other avatar in the game—donned a futuristic full-body spandex suit. She had long white hair and dark blue eyes—Hinata thought herself kind of clever to reverse her normal everyday color scheme. She scrolled through her weapon choices.

 _Chicken drumstick? I can't believe I still have this thing._ She toggled the drumstick on and off and giggled to herself.

 _Let's see…Seraph's Hammer…Titan's Shield…Blade of Grass…_

"I think the chicken drumstick is a solid choice."

Hinata turned around to see Tenten's avatar behind her. She had a greeting animation activated and was waving and smiling enthusiastically. Hinata responded with a greeting animation of her own.

"Sorry, SunshineHime—ran into Lee at the gym today. Anyways, you ready to get things started?" Tenten's voice projected from her headset as her avatar came into view. Tenten's avatar was quite similar to her physical self—brown buns and brown eyes. She donned a pink suit with neon red lining. On top of her avatar and seeming to float on top of her buns was the label "TwoBunz - Lvl 55." Hinata herself had a label "SunshineHime - Lvl 67."

"Wait, let me choose a weapon first. As tempting as the chicken drumstick is, it might not do well for such a high-level mission."

Hinata settled on a Twin Lions blade. The weapon was a long polearm with a top design to mimic the fangs of two twin lions. Its handle was ornately carved in gold and Hinata toyed with how long the artist must have taken to build such an object. Looking over to Tenten, Hinata saw that she had selected a ranged shuriken set.

"What do we need to do again? Have you accepted the mission yet?" Hinata asked.

"Yup! Here, let me pull up a map."

A holographic map appeared before the two of them and they studied the two red X's marked on the display.

"Hmm, from what I read of the brief, it seems to be a survival mission. We start here in Neo-Shibuya, and we need to make it to here…to the nexus across town." Tenten moved her finger along a highlighted route.

"There will be a bunch of monsters that pop up as you go along, and they get harder the more time you spend in the dungeon."

"Hmm, so we would want to speed-run this, right?" Hinata asked.

"Yup, you got it! But it shouldn't be too hard of a mission since it's only ranked B. I'm sure we can handle it."

"Alright! Are you ready to go? Do you think we'll finish this by dinner time?"

"Yeah, shouldn't take too long. Rank B missions usually only take an hour or so."

"Ready when you are."

The two avatars approached the entry marker which was denoted by a spiraling column of red light. Hinata raised her handheld controller up. She gave a confirmation nod to Tenten before the two simultaneously touched the column of light. The screen turned black and was replaced by dialog text.

"Welcome to Mission Fuinjutsu. Rank: B. This mission requires two for completion. Please select your partner from the dropdown pool."

Hinata swiped the dialog display away and the list of partners appeared. She scrolled through the list looking for Tenten's.

 _Hmm…POWEROFYOUTH9000…SaucemanU…RamenFox100…BugzRc00l…Aha! TwoBunz!_

Hinata selected and confirmed Tenten's IGN with her controller and the loading screen popped up.

" _Loading mission…Please wait."_

After a few seconds of loading, the black screen dissolved and Hinata found herself once again at the mission's starting point in Neo-Shibuya. This time, however, only Tenten stood alongside her. While a few NPCs continued wandering about, all other active players disappeared from the map. A female voice spoke into her headpiece.

"Welcome to Containment Mission 8B. To complete the mission, you will need to reach the nexus located at point B of the map. You will face various obstacles as you head towards the goal. Two must reach the nexus to avoid containment."

Hinata turned to Tenten and raised an eyebrow.

"What does containment mean?"

Tenten shrugged. "Might be a new mission class? I'm not sure what it means. I wouldn't worry about it. Maybe it's just new lingo for respawning. If one of us dies, we'll probably respawn at the last checkpoint. Let's just regroup there?"

"Hai. You ready?"

"Health bar full…Chakra bar also full! Let's do this!"

Hinata glanced in awe at the landscape. Virtual reality had been out for a few years but it hadn't garnered much attention until recently, when one of the biggest game publishers announced a partnership with the most popular gaming console company. While she gamed here and there, she wanted to see what the big fuss was about and decided to buy their first game. She had been playing for a couple of months now and even managed to convince Tenten and Neji to get on board. Despite being somewhat familiar with the experience, it never ceased to amaze her how detailed and realistic the art and design was. She felt as if she had left her real life behind to venture through digital Shibuya. If only she could escape reality, maybe just for a little bit, and spend some time exploring the karaoke bar to her left, or perhaps the arcade to her right. She could practically hear the chorus of voices through the tinted glass, and the clinking of coins amongst beeping 8-bit music.

After about a minute of running down the city streets, the two ran into their first obstacle.

The two were faced with a couple of level 7 lantern monsters. They resembled normal orange paper lanterns except they had grinning faces and hovered above the ground. Every now and then, embers would sprout from their top. Seemingly within their range of attack, the lantern monsters began to bounce forward.

"Hey Tenten, these are kind of cute!"

"Watch out for their embers, Hinata. I think we fought these during our last mission in the Land of Fire."

"I remember—they don't do much damage but they're still pretty annoying."

The two dashed forward, and swinging her controller forward, her Twin Lions blade easily sliced through the closest enemy. Embers and paper scraps were strewn through the air in the same death animation. Hinata could almost feel the heat of the fires as the embers flew forward.

The battle ended soon enough, and the two continued their trek. As outlined by Tenten, the monsters were indeed becoming increasingly difficult as the two moved forward. They suddenly paused as the ground beneath them began to shake.

"TenTen! To your right!"

The two stepped back from the opening of an alleyway as a metal clanging noise became louder and louder. The music shifted from the dungeon's main theme to a more ominous yet energetic piece. From the corner of her eye, Hinata caught a flicker of movement towards them.

TenTen jumped back—narrowly avoiding what seems to be an old banana peel.

"Huh?"

The metal clanging grew louder and louder before the monster stepped out of the alleyway.

"I-is that?"

"Looks like a mini-boss monster…"

The monster was ten feet tall and almost twice as high. While resembling a toy robot, its torso seemed to be a metal trash can. Its arms were metal, with two robotic claws at the end. It had a face resembling painted on graffiti—with the exception that the paint would shift into various facial expressions. Unlike the usual metal trashcan, however, there was no lid and heaps of trash could be seen spilling from above. Every few seconds, the monster would heave upwards and an assortment of dirty socks, leftover takeout, and soda cans would be hurdled outwards. Hinata saw a banana peel fly in her direction and reached out to catch it. Her health bar blinked, followed by a loud giggle on Tenten's end.

"Well, Hinata, looks like we should avoid the projectiles."

"I can't believe I lost three health points from that…" She threw the banana peel aside.

The two dodged the raining trash and aimed for the torso. Tenten threw shurikens on the side to draw the monster's attention and Hinata would take the openings to strike the monster's middle.

"Tenten, the projectiles are faster now."

"It's almost out of health but so am I…this trash is actually really hard to dodge."

"Do you think you can make it?"

"Yeah, we should finish him off fast and I'll take a health potion after this battle!"

"Okay!"

The two kept up their pattern of taking turns attacking. Tenten threw out multiple shurikens and swiveled around to avoid the projectiles during her cooldown while Hinata tumbled in to slice the metal trash can. As the monster's health diminished, so did the time intervals between each trashy rainfall. The debris seemed to be getting more powerful, for it was no longer banana peels and dirty socks, but watermelons and glass bottles. The monster was now down to its last sliver of health and the battle music was more intense than ever.

A bottle shattered near her feet and Hinata winced as a piece of glass cut into her flesh.

 _That's weird. This feels so real._

Hinata remembered reading about the effects of virtual reality on the senses. While providing a truly immersive and enjoyable experience, some people were often overwhelmed by the virtual environment and oftentimes mistook virtual for reality. Apparently, our minds have the ability to fill in what we are familiar with in order to create a more complete experience. People reported feeling wind, or smelling popcorn, for example. But it was literally all in their head—their brains would react as if the environment were real and while their neural firings mimicked that of a real event so that it felt real, there was no physical manifestation of such sensory experiences. Perhaps it was happening to Hinata. She could almost feel the wind as a watermelon flew past her head with a light _swoosh_. In fact, she swore she could even smell the trash…

Hinata scrunched up her nose in disgust and wondered if Tenten was also experiencing this.

"Tenten...do…do you smell that?"

"I think I do…this is wei—Hinata! Look out!"

Hinata ran forward and pushed Hinata down as a barrage of broken glass bottles rained down. The broken bottles shattered upon impacting Tenten's back and the scattering of the glass shards rained down on Hinata. With a chilling scream, Tenten's life bar depleted and her avatar collapsed to the ground. Tenten dissolved into digital dust particles before disappearing altogether.

"Tenten!" Hinata shouted into her microphone. Normally, she wasn't one to shout while playing video games, but the scene had felt so oddly real. Hearing nothing on the other end of the line, she repeated Tenten's name again.

"Okay, Tenten. Let me know if you're respawning. I'll wait here for you."

Still, there was no response.

"Tenten, did you disconnect?"

Maybe the server was experiencing some issues. It's not like Tenten to quit like that. But the game wasn't fun anymore without Tenten, and Hinata too decided to call it a day. Maybe they can try again tomorrow. Hinata reached up to remove her helmet, but it wasn't there.

 _What?_

Hinata felt all over her head, but there was no indication of the virtual reality headset. She felt her ears—the feeling of cold plastic was missing. She ran her fingers through her strands of _hair. White hair._

 _What's going on?_

She felt for her controller and tried to reach the manual exit showed up on her visual display. She tried toggling her equipment—but in her hand remained the Twin Lions blade. She lifted it up to inspect it. She ran her thumb along its gilded handle and screamed when she realized she could feel every groove on the design. Dropping the weapon to the ground in front of her, she turned her head to once again inspect the digital landscape.

 _No, don't panic. You're just tired—it's been a long day._

A few NPCs were still walking idly around. The department stores looked the same as before, and the ramen stands smelled deliciously relaxing.

 _Wait—smell?_

Hinata sniffed the air and the distinct aromatic smell of pork broth wafted through her nose. Hinata thought back to when she and Tenten were fighting the trash monster. _So it wasn't in my imagination?_ But this was a game? There's no way she should be smelling anything?

 _Ping!_

Hinata whipped her head around. She though that she heard the sharp ring of the _"I need assistance"_ alert.

 _Ping! Ping!_

Was that Tenten? The pings were getting louder and more pronounced. Whoever it was getting closer to her location and the pings were sounding more urgent.

"You over there!"

Hinata's reverie was momentarily broken as she registered a masculine voice from her right. She turned around to see another player running towards her—and about twenty ramen monsters swiftly behind him. While seeming to look like instant ramen cups, they had robotic looking feet and the lid pulled apart to reveal whipping noodles. They were gaining on him and he was losing ground fast. They were only level 35, but he only had half his health bar. His avatar had long black hair, tied into a ponytail, and his eyes were blood red. To match, he donned a suit identical to hers—except it was black with blue accents. The words "SaucemanU – Level 89" were above his head and had a Sword of Kusanagi equipped.

 _Wait a minute? Isn't this a sealed dungeon? There's no way another player could have gotten in here when Tenten and I were already here?_

But there was no time to think as the ramen monster continued lashing out. Before one of them managed to snare him with a noodle, he flipped backwards and began slicing through the appendages with his sword.

"Well don't just stand there!"

"H-hai!" Ignoring the clenching in her gut, Hinata picked up her blade.

While strenuous, the two were able to fend off the swarm while suffering only minor damages. Pieces of noodle and dried vegetables littered the grisly scene by the time they had finished. Hinata looked at her suit. The once pristinely white armor was stained red in areas she had been struck by noodles.

 _How did that happen?_ She didn't remember reading anything about armor updates in the patch notes.

"Do you have any points in healing abilities?"

"Huh?"

The man inspected their surroundings before putting away his sword and facing her.

"Do you have any healing skills?" He reiterated. His voice was cool and steady.

"N-not too many…I put most of my points into range. I can try healing, but it has a pretty taxing chakra drain and cooldown."

She held her arms out to his chest, and performed a familiar pattern of motion to trigger her heal. A soft green glow began to emanate from her palms and the red mark on his suit began to dull to a rusty pink. Suddenly, Hinata's face turned ashen white.

"Y-you're health bar…it's not there anymore…"

The man swore underneath his breath.

"We need to get out of here." He turned towards the direction of the nexus and began walking.

"N-Nani?"

The other player turned to her.

"Listen, Sunshine Princess, we're not in a game anymore and we need to get to the nexus."

"What? I don't understand…" Who was this guy and why was he ordering her around?

"Look, you're level 67 and the next wave of monsters won't be as easy. We're both under half health right now and I'm out of health potions. I won't be able to take more than two more waves before I'm done for, and if it means leaving you here, so be it. Let's go."

Without waiting for her, he began dashing in the direction of the nexus. Out of leads, she swiftly followed him.

"Um…Sauceman? This is a two-person mission. Where is your partner?"

"He died and didn't respawn."

Tenten's scream reverberated in Hinata's mind.

"My friend didn't respawn either. Maybe the game is just glitching…"

"Still doesn't explain why we can't get out of here."

Hinata frowned and continued running alongside him. Nothing was making any sense.

They ran towards the spiraling pillar of light. Her lungs burned with every additional leap and she mentally thanked whoever made this digital hell that there was no stamina bar. _Wait? Lungs burning?_ She was sitting in her bed at home—this is impossible.

"You need to move faster!"

"That's impossible! We're in a game—I can't move any faster!"

"When will you fucking understand that this isn't a game anymore?!"

She flinched at his words. He sighed and the pair stopped running.

"Look, I didn't mean to snap, but the longer we stay in here, the more physical and digital seem to become one." He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "You're upset. You're scared. Want to know how I know that? I can read your face. How can I read your face when we're in a game? Our faces shouldn't be changing. But they are. And that's enough for me to get the fuck out of here."

Hinata played his words over and over in her mind. The pounding of her own heartbeat only grew louder as she realized that the video game music had stopped long ago.

"But I have a headset on. I'm in my room. I'm on my bed…"

"And I was sitting in my chair—but here we both are now."

"B-but what about my friend?"

"Look, your friend is gone. I don't know where she went—but she's probably in the same place as Naruto—and hopefully they're both okay. But if we don't make it out of here, there's no way we can help them."

"Y-you're right." Hinata clenched the Twin Lions Blade harder. "B-but how will we save them?"

"Are you from Tokyo?"

Hinata nodded.

"If we get out of here, meet me at Harajuku Cafe at 5pm. I'll have a black hoodie on. My name is Sasuke."

Harajuku square was a short train ride away from her apartment.

"And what if this isn't real?"

"If this isn't real, then maybe we'll run into each other in PvP."

Hinata ran the plan through her head. It should give her a good hour to check up on Tenten. She gulped.

"O-okay. Let's go."

The two continued running through the streets, zig zagging past dead ends and the occasional NPC.

A sudden crackling noise brought their attention behind them. The two paused and braced themselves for the next enemy. The electrical wires on the power lines above suddenly began snapping apart and twisting together. Within seconds, power lines from all over the map had slithered forward and braided themselves into a towering electrical serpent.

"Shit." Sasuke turned to Hinata. "We need to run. We can't beat that."

"Agreed!" Hinata squeaked, and without another moment's notice, the two resumed their mad dash towards the nexus.

"Sasuke! It's gaining on us!"

The two were merely a street corner away from the nexus but the electric wire snake, upon its completion, began slithering after the two. After gaining some significant distance, the snake gave a whip of its tail and a jolt of electricity blasted the area where the two just ran past. Sasuke tumbled forward and an electric blast narrowly missed him. The snake, seeing a weakness, lunged forward with metal fangs bared. Sasuke braced himself for the impact when the snake was suddenly rammed to the side. A sickening crunch of metal followed and Sasuke looked up to see Hinata driving her blade through the monster's neck. She pulled the sword out as sparks flew outwards. She headed towards him but the murmur of the same crackling sound stopped her in her tracks. The two looked back to see the metal wires reconnecting where she had sliced the beast.

"It's regenerating!" Hinata gasped with wide eyes.

"We need to reach the nexus before it can catch up to us." Sasuke pulled himself up from the ground and the two hurriedly stumbled around the corner.

Up close, the nexus was simply a tower of light sprouting from the ground. The digital light particles weaved in and out of each other and formed a spiraling double helix.

Sasuke lunged forward and reached a hand to the light before screaming in agonizing pain.

"Sasuke!" She caught him as he fell back.

"There's a force field on the nexus." He reached his hand in again and was met with the same shock as before.

"Damn it!" He shouted, tossing his sword to the floor. The crackling sound behind them increased in intensity.

Hinata gasped lightly.

"This is a two-person mission." She whispered. "We need to go through together."

The man raised an eyebrow.

"Two must reach the nexus to avoid containment." She repeated the words of the mission.

"You better be right. Remember, Sunshine Princess—5pm at Harajuku Cafe. The real one. Hope to never see you."

"H-hai."

Hinata looked back once more towards the digital ruins that used to be Neo-Shibuya. The crackling of electricity was louder than ever. Grabbing each other's hand, the two leaped into the light.


End file.
